It's been in development for 6 months already, but a few days ago Finnish studio Rocket Pack announced their new engine to the public. According to the developers Rocket Engine allows for plugin-free, cross-platform browser game development.
The engine comes with Rocket Builder, an editing tool that enables developers to build a game without coding experience. An interesting detail about this editor is, as you can see in the promo video posted below, that assets are uploaded to the cloud, much like Google Docs. This means developers are theoretically able to work on their game from anywhere.
Google's attempt at competing against Facebook saw very little traction at the launch of Google Buzz. It generated more controversy than anything over a flummoxing disregard for user privacy (even more so than Facebook, if you can believe it).
Its recent acquisitions seem to suggest the online giant is hard at work behind-the-scenes to build something completely unique and different from Facebook. And it's obvious Google is looking specifically at bringing social games to its arsenal, building from the ground up with virtually no experience in the video game industry.
In this editorial, originally printed in Game Developer magazine's August 2010 issue, editor-in-chief Brandon Sheffield plays the LCD game Super Racing obsessively and finds within its simple constraints game design elegance.
After months of preparation in buying and investing in online video game companies, Google will be launching its very own games platform for its Chrome Internet browser.
"The key to their recent success is that instead of whining about how gamers are just a bunch of shoot-happy stupids who are easily distracted by bling-mapping, Telltale sat down and re-thought the entire genre. They figured out what made the games fun and they ripped out and re-designed everything else."
The article presents some interesting points about why the genre fell in decline in the first place and how it's being revived, but I can't lose the feeling that I've read all of this before. Telltale Games is doing good work for quite some time already.
Junction Point Studios' Warren Spector, currently at work on Epic Mickey for Wii, took the stage at GDC Europe to talk about how games relate to other forms of media. Referencing the book First Person, Spector mentioned how videogames encompass a huge range of qualities like still images, moving pictures, and interactive elements and other existing media, but believes games are than just interactive amalgamations of other art forms. He says movies use lighting to evoke emotions, and games do in similar ways. Borrowing isn't bad, it's necessary in some cases, says Spector, but there are rules about when that's ok and when you should flee from influences.
I’ve often told students that one of the reasons I find game development to be one of the most exciting fields of design is that in order to create a great game about a subject, the game designer is forced to become an expert on that subject.
Do you want the video games you play to be “immersive”? Just like The Matrix someday? Writer Oliver Hargrave pens his objection to the concept in an article we’re proud to republish here.
"Cinematic" is one the gaming industry's favorite buzzwords. It's meant to fill us with dreams of fully playable Hollywood blockbusters... but in reality, it usually means games laden with non-interactive cut-scenes created by folks whose filmmaking skills would barely qualify them for a spot on the direct-to-DVD rack between Snakes on a Train and Transmorphers.
But what if developers looked beyond cut-scenes and applied some valuable moviemaking lessons to their core game design? Things like...
Gameplay alone will get a game recognised, but a quality story can keep you entranced long after you’ve tired of repetitive combat animations. Tameem Antoniades, creative director and co-founder of Ninja Theory, the studio behind Heavenly Sword, is an ardent believer that story is a game’s most important feature.
Weblog IndieGames brought to my attention a very original adventure game currently in production. It's called "The Dream Machine" and it's entirely built out of clay and cardboard. The developers are Eric Zaring and Anders Gustafsson of Swedish development studio Cockroach Inc.
The game tells the story of Victor and Alicia, a couple who've just moved into a new apartment. Soon they discover that there's something strange about the seemingly normal apartment building.
The game will be released in 5 episodes available for Windows, Macintosh and Linux. The first episode will be released soon, for free. Subsequent episodes will cost, and I quote, "a few bucks". You can already try the demo available on the official website of The Dream Machine. The developers also have a development blog, if you're interested. And here's a trailer:
I love good movies. I love good books. I love good TV series. I’m a huge fan of noninteractive media. Yet I skip through most cutscenes in videogames. Why is this?
If you haven't played one of the many classics that Warren Spector's had an active hand in developing (like Deus Ex, System Shock, Ultima Underworld or Thief), you will surely have played at least one game that borrows heavily from the many innovations to the various genres these games inspired. Yet one of the reasons why you may not know this - why you may not know Spector - is that for the past several years he's been in self-exile, plugging away at a super-secret project deep in the heart of Texas. A project that - until very recently - he couldn't even talk about. A project we now know as Epic Mickey.
Designer Ron Gilbert is best known for his landmark LucasArts adventure games Maniac Mansion and The Secret of Monkey Island, but his career has also encompassed children's games at Humongous Entertainment, and he served as producer on Chris Taylor's ambitious large-scale RTS Total Annihilation. His latest game, DeathSpank, debuts on Xbox Live Arcade and PlayStation Network this week, and represents the addition of the action-RPG to his repertoire.
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